Cookie & Analytics Notice

Last updated October 29, 2026

This notice explains the analytics, cookies and browser storage used on YourNPGuide.com, and the choices you have. It supplements our Privacy Policy. We use analytics to learn which parts of our national park guides are useful so we can improve them. We do not sell your personal information, and advertising cookies and ad personalization are switched off for every visitor.

Open your privacy choices

Your choices

  • The banner: Reject optional turns off the three choices in the banner: Google Analytics, Reading engagement and Link & search activity. Accept all turns all three on. Choose options lets you switch each one on or off. The switches show what you will save; on your first visit they start off. Outside the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, Google Analytics already runs before you choose and stays on until you press Reject optional or save with it off. Your choice is saved in the yca_consent cookie, and you can change it at any time with the Your Privacy Choices button shown on every page. Some things listed below run whatever you choose.
  • Where you are: in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, Google Analytics stays off until you allow it. Everywhere else it runs by default until you reject it. Our own site analytics always waits for you to allow it.
  • Global Privacy Control: if your browser sends this signal, we treat it as Reject optional, unless you later make a different choice on this site.
  • California and other US states: we do not sell your personal information or share it for targeted advertising. Reject optional, or a Global Privacy Control signal, also turns off Google Analytics.

What runs on this site

  • Google Analytics 4 (Google) counts visits and pages viewed and shows how people find us. It sets its cookies only while it is allowed. While it is not allowed, Google’s tag still sends Google basic signals without cookies; the next item says what they include.
  • Advertising signals are always off. Our Google tag also loads Google Ads conversion measurement for our own ad campaigns. For every visitor, on every page, we set Google’s three advertising consent signals (ad storage, ad user data and ad personalization) to “denied”. Google’s documentation says that with these signals denied, its tags do not set or read advertising cookies, and your visit is not used for ad personalization or remarketing. Google’s tags still send Google basic signals without cookies, and these include the page address and any ad click ID in it (such as the gclid added to the address when you arrive from a Google ad).
  • Our own site analytics (optional; stored on our own server): Reading engagement records pages viewed, how far you scroll, whether you finish an article, which sections are read, and which partner offers come into view. Link & search activity records clicks on links, partner links and buttons, and searches typed on our site. Each record includes the page, the site or campaign you came from, and a random visitor ID. If you also allow Google Analytics, these events are sent to Google Analytics too. Our trip planner sends Google Analytics a few counts of its own (when you open the planner, save an idea, create a trip, add a stop or ask for an export, with the trip’s number of days and stops in ranges), and only if you allow both Link & search activity and Google Analytics.
  • Server request log: when our server builds a page (pages served from our cache are not logged), it records the page, the time and a salted hash of your IP address. For automated visitors, such as search-engine and AI crawlers, it also records the browser name they send. We use it to count visits and to see which crawlers read our guides. It does not depend on the banner and is deleted after 180 days.
  • Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools show us how our pages appear in search results. They run no code on this site and set no cookies.
  • Google Tag Manager loads when you first scroll, tap or type on a page, or 12 seconds after it opens. Today it runs one tag, on one tour page (see ynpg_google_click_id below).
  • Partner links: when you click a partner link (for example AvantLink, Amazon, Viator or Expedia), that partner records the click on its own site so it can pay us a commission. See our Affiliate Disclosure.
  • Content from other services: our images load from cdn.yournpguide.com (run by Cloudflare), author photos from Gravatar (Automattic), map tiles from OpenStreetMap and the map code from unpkg.com, and some product photos on gear pages from the seller or AvantLink. These services receive your IP address when your browser loads them.

Cookies and browser storage

  • yca_consent (cookie, this site): remembers your privacy choice. 365 days.
  • yca_aid (cookie, this site): a random visitor ID for our own site analytics. Set only if you allow Reading engagement or Link & search activity; removed whenever neither is allowed, including one left by an earlier version of this site. 365 days.
  • yca_sid (browser session storage, this site): groups one visit’s events for our own site analytics. Set only if you allow them. Until you close the tab.
  • yca_chk (cookie, this site): once a day the site asks our server whether this browser belongs to our own team, so our own visits are not counted; this cookie marks that the check has run. This check runs whatever you choose in the banner. 1 day.
  • yca_exclude (cookie, this site): set only on our own team’s devices, to turn off all analytics there. 2 years.
  • _ga and _ga_JPNVZKVD57 (cookies, Google Analytics): tell visits and visitors apart. Set only while Google Analytics is allowed; removed when you reject it. Up to 2 years.
  • Google advertising cookies (such as _gcl_au): not set, because ad storage is denied for every visitor; any left from an earlier visit are removed.
  • ynpg_viator_google_click (browser session storage, this site): on our Viator tour landing page, when you arrive from one of our Google ads, keeps the ad’s click ID for that visit and adds it, in coded form, to the Viator booking link so Viator can tell us which ad led to a booking. This runs whatever you choose in the banner. Until you close the tab.
  • ynpg_google_click_id (browser local storage, set by a Google Tag Manager tag on one Viator tour page): when you arrive from one of our Google ads, keeps the ad’s click ID and adds it to that page’s Viator booking link. This runs whatever you choose in the banner. 90 days.
  • Trip planner and page features (browser local or session storage; names start with ynpg or npd_): remember your saved trips, answers, filters and progress on your device. They stay until you clear them or close the tab.

How long we keep data

  • Our own site analytics events: deleted after 180 days.
  • Server request log: deleted after 180 days.
  • Consent records (your choice, the time, a random ID, and salted hashes of your IP address and browser name): kept up to 24 months as proof of your choice, then deleted.
  • Google Analytics data: kept by Google for the retention period set in our Google Analytics account.

What we do not collect

  • Our own site analytics does not collect your name or email address.
  • For ordinary visitors we do not store your IP address or browser name in readable form. We keep a salted SHA-256 hash (a one-way code made with a secret key held by this site). It can still be linked to you by someone who holds that key, so we treat it as personal data.

Performance

The analytics script is lightweight, loads without blocking the page, and sends data in the background, so it does not slow down your browsing.

Contact

Questions, or a request to delete your data, can be sent through our contact page. If you have a yca_aid cookie, include its value so we can find and delete the analytics events and consent records tied to it. Server request-log rows carry no visitor ID; they are deleted after 180 days.